Have I told you that NaNoWriMo is coming?
Oh, I did? Well, it is. Let me tell you, again, in case you missed it. You will also notice that I have added my NaNoFlair in the left column - a little web button widget announcing to the world that I will be undertaking the adventure again in 2013. I also set up my favorite personal word count scoreboard, but that's a little lower in my menu bar since it will remain blank until about 2:00 A.M. on November 1st, when I will be updating to my first 1,667 words or beyond.Yes, I will be going to the midnight write-in. Of all the NaNoAventures in which I've participated, I've only missed one. That one year was my worst novel. I never completed it. The story never went anywhere, except in circles. I had plenty of backstory but never arrived at the action. I was bored some of the time. I thought I'd go back in and clean it up, but once I hit the 50,000 words I was done. Well, I think I actually stopped somewhere around 50,065 words. I have no intention of going back to that novel. I was, technically, a "winner," but the book was not.
Lesson learned : go to the midnight write-in. It gets the month off to a great start. There is much energy and fun and we're all there to get in that first daily average of 1,667 or a few extra words in the bank. Fun. Writing and fun and commitment.
In the meantime, I'm ramping up my writing. Yes, you can expect to see me in here more often.
This week I interpreted a second performance of Fiddler on the Roof - a matinee for students. There were about 110 or so Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, adults, and signing staff in the audience. The play went really well and the three-interpreter team? We felt great about how we did. It's always nice to get a second chance at interpreting a play after all of the preparation. And it did; the entire audience was awesome and the interpreted section was huge and a lot of fun. I don't have another play to interpret until into December, which mean what? More time for writing. Yes!
Having the play done and the flyers created and posted for the theatrical interpreting workshop I'm presenting - oh, and I'm in the process of typing up the final edits of the task force's professional standard practice paper on performance interpreting - I have even more time for writing. And I will.
Tonight I also talked about potential very general NaNoPlot ideas with a writer friend. I think I have mine; which means I have a little under two weeks to do some more thinking about it and do some research. I think I've decided to go with the second book in the series of my other novel-in-progress. That one is an earlier NaNoNovel and I like it very much. It is very messy and requires much editing and rewriting. I've thought it was a good first of a series, so I think I'll go with that.
My question now is: what will it be based on? I don't want to give anything away, yet. But I do need to find a novel which is at least 70 years old and preferably one that the author died over 70 years ago. In that source novel there needs to be a character who was somehow significantly injured, neglected, or something similar. The offending character does not need to have malicious intent; it could be accidental, or stupid, or out of fear - but they basically don't get caught.
I was talking with my partner tonight and said the offending character "gets away with it." She pointed out that the characters in my first novel didn't really get away with it, they ended up ruining their own lives. True. But they were never publicly found out nor suffer consequences at the hand of others; only their own.
So - if you have any favorite old novels or stories which might fit my needs, let me know. I have a few days to do some looking around and I'm open to suggestions. Old book, dead author, a bad deed is done and the offender not caught. Easy, right? It could be.
And I'm building back up to daily writing. I had planned to start that before now, but, oh well. Here I am. When we hit NaNovember I will be writing (nearly) every day (or every, I hope!).
NaNoOn!
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